Ranma Universe
by Skye Silverwing
Summary: When a fateful accident in Beach City claims the life of his young son, Genma Saotome seeks to gain vengeance and salvage his honor by stealing the boy whose family was responsible.


Ranma Universe

By Skye Silverwing

Prolog: The Dark Horse Runs

Genma Saotome, Grand Master of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, glared back and forth between his pathetic student of a son and the Temple on the hill.

He had hoped to find some bit of esoteric training, or at least some food and maybe some money to line his pockets there, but as it turned out, the Temple had not been a proper temple in any such terms. It had been retrofitted into a house where a small boy lived with three… Well… He was hesitant to call them "women".

The boy had been Ranma's age, but the moment the three women had appeared, his ki senses told him that they were not individuals to be taken lightly. While their appearance was vaguely human, the largest of them was too bulky and rounded, the second largest was too polished and pointy. The smallest of them was clearly meant to appear the most human, but she was a midget, and she was purple. What was more, they seemed to be constructed entirely of some kind of magical energy, being emitted by the gems embedded in each of them.

The boy had that energy suffusing him as well, but he actually had a physical body as well.

After being summarily dismissed (The big one had generated a steal fist weapon and told him out right that he would find nothing to steal here, even before he opened his mouth) Genma took his son down to the beach for some speed training. Honestly, the Boy's progress was shameful. Genma sighed. This was what he got for starting the Boy's training so late. Ranma would take years of training before he would be up to a level where he could take over as a master of the Family school and Marry Soun Tendo's daughter to unite the Schools of Anything Goes again.

He spotted the boy from the temple and a hairy lout heading up to a little French Fry shop on the boardwalk. The bearded guy must have been the boy's Father. Genma took a moment to study the pair, with the eye of a martial artist. The father was an instant write off in terms of fighting prowess, he showed signs of being a musician, but not with a combat focus. He could probably throw a good punch, but Genma doubted he would even stand his ground in a fight.

The boy, however, showed a fair bit of grace, in spite of his rotund look. The energy that suffused his being seemed to improve his speed and strength, and Genma could tell the boy had received at least a fair bit of training and combat experience in his life. Genma would have placed the boy at about twice his own son's fighting prowess. It made Ranma all the more of a disgrace.

Genma was just starting to think of ways to improve his own son's training to help him pass the boy's level as soon as possible when a loud sonic boom shook the entire city. High in the sky, an enormous hand had appeared, pointing at Beach City. Genma did not know what it meant, but he figured he would find out soon enough.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Garnet had bigger problems to deal with than the man on the beach. They looked up at the hand hovering in the sky through a telescope.

Steven and Greg approached at a run. "Guys!" Steven called, "Did you see that thing in the sky?"

Pearl looked at him. "It's a ship." She said, "We have to assume it's Peridot."

Garnet nodded. "Lapis told us she would be coming," she said, "with advanced weapons and reinforcements."

Steven stepped up to the telescope. "I want to see!" he said.

Yes, Garnet had bigger problems to deal with than the man on the beach… But why did him being here still bother her so much?

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Genma watched as the alien women up at the Temple fired some sort of energy weapon up at the giant hand. The thing just brushed the attack off, and continued on. The martial artist started to wonder if he should flee with Ranma while he had the chance.

Then he heard it. "E-va-cu-ate! E-va-cu-ate!"

A well-dressed politician type with a receding hairline got out of a van with what appeared to be a large version of his head on it and began to make a speech explaining the need to evacuate Beach City to the citizens.

Genma grinned. Evacuation meant homes and businesses left undefended, which would be an excellent opportunity to scavenge resources. He would be foolish to leave without taking advantage.

It took a few hours for all of the citizens to gather their things and depart, with that hand growing ever larger in the sky.

Genma and his son crouched low on a rooftop, watching as two of the women from the temple went through a dance, and then joined their energy forms together into an even more powerful form, and proceeded to shoot light arrows from a bow at the incoming hand. The boy that lived with the women reappeared, and the fused women separated again. Then she ship landed. Three more aliens came out, and the boy displayed the ability to summon a defensive shield of some kind before he and his companions were defeated and taken.

The ship then lifted back up into the sky and Genma figured that that would be the end of it. He went to work, collecting food, money and other resources left unguarded by the evacuees of the town, and then proceeded to go see what he could loot from the Temple, which now stood empty.

He shot a glance at Ranma. "Boy, you go clime to the top of that mountain sixty times while I see what I can find here." He said, "I expect you to make it up and down in less than two minutes."

Ranma sighed and nodded and began working on scaling the cliff.

Genma entered the small house and found a large, sealed door, as well as a crystal platform of some kind. He was beginning to search for the trick to opening the door when a deep rumble echoed from the sky.

Genma rushed outside to see the giant hand, now trailing smoke, falling back to Earth. He tracked its trajectory and saw that it was going to crash on the North slope of the mountain the Temple was built on. His eyes scanned the slope and he saw something that shook his world.

Ranma was on that slope.

Genma leapt to the roof of the building. "RUN, BOY!" he shouted, as pieces of flaming debris from the falling ship began to crash onto the hill.

Ranma ran as fast as his eight-year-old legs and martial arts training could take him, but it wasn't enough. "POPS!" he cried, as the falling hand crashed.

Genma's soul shattered. His son. His legacy. His hope. All destroyed. All ruined by those damned… Aliens.

A chunk of the debris shifted to his left, and a pink lion dug the Boy from the temple and his three women out of the rubble, safe in a bubble of energy. Through his tears of grief, rage built within Genma Saotome. Those monsters had taken his son from him.

Sinking back into the shadows, and drawing on the Umisenken, Genma made himself a solemn vow. He would bide his time, and when the moment was right, he would have his revenge.

He did not have to wait long.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Something did not sit well with Garnet. Her future vision was not showing any threat, but she still had a sense of unease. In the weeks following Peridot's attack, she kept seeing flashes of the man she had seen before the attack, flickers of hostile intent. She guessed that she was just uneasy about Peridot and Jasper escaping. Jasper was being kept down by Lapis Lazuli, according to Steven, but there was no telling how long Lapis would be able to maintain her hold on the Fusion called Malachite.

Garnet was concerned that, if Jasper broke free, or worse, took control of Malachite, It would be difficult for the Gems to defeat her. Steven was especially vulnerable, and he would be specifically targeted. He just did not have the abilities the other gems did, offensively or defensively. Worse yet, if Steven were seriously injured, since he had a physical body, he could not retreat into his gem to heal, as the rest of them could. He would die.

This bothered Garnet a lot, as her future vision kept showing that Lapis lacked the focus to hold the fusion long. And any battle with Jasper or Malachite could easily result in Steven's death. And still there was something there, flickering on the edge of her perception. She did not like this at all.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Steven was not asleep when the Gems had returned from their latest mission. But they were talking about him, so he listened. "Seriously, Garnet," Amethyst was saying, "Steven is a Gem. He can handle what he needs to."

Pearl nodded. "Steven has constantly been surprising us since the day we let him join us." She said, "I worry about him, but he is a lot more skilled than any of us really give him credit for."

Garnet growled slightly. "Are you telling me you think Steven could handle himself against Jasper?" she said, "Or Malachite? Catching Peridot's foot is one thing, but I would hate to risk Steven against a gem of Jasper's power. We need to protect him. We can regenerate. He cannot. And he just doesn't have the power to-"

The gems walked into the temple, shutting out the rest of Garnet's words.

Steven rolled over and looked at Lion. Surely they could not have been that concerned about him. He was pretty strong, and getting stronger every day. He could summon his shield anytime his friends needed it, and he could handle a lot of punishment.

He knew that of all of the Chrystal Gems, he was the weakest, and the most important, and the most likely to get seriously hurt or die in a fight. Still, it bothered him to think of the gems protecting him at their own expense. They were important, too.

He sighed and closed his eyes, drifting off into troubled dreams.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

The next mission, the gems had to split up. Peridot's escape pod indicated that she was heading for the Lunar Sea Spire. It was possible she was going to try to send out another transmission using the Gem tech that remained there, submerged under the waves.

Naturally, since the Sea Spire was underwater now, Steven could not join them in this attempt to capture the rogue Gem. Fortunately, Garnet had also sensed some lost Gem technology that needed to be collected, not far from Beach City. Steven had declared his ability to retrieve the item on his own, but Garnet was uneasy about it, so she told Pearl to go with him.

Steven and Pearl hiked along a long, winding path that lead to the small shrine where the Gem Technology was now housed.

Steven stepped up alongside Pearl and shot her a grin. "So what are we going to get, Pearl?" he asked.

Pearl smiled back at him. "It is actually an old Amnesia module." She told him, "Long ago, before we became members of the local community with the help of your father, we thought it was important that we keep our presence here on Earth a secret. To that end, we used Amnesia modules to erase the memory of Gems from the minds of humans that found out about us."

Steven's eyes widened. "So it would be like that movie… um…" he thought for a moment, "Guys in Suits?"

Pearl chuckled. "Something like that." She said. "These devices were specifically calibrated to remove the memories pertaining to the Gems. You should be careful not to touch the crystal on the end of it. Your whole life has been about the Gems, and we can't be certain that your gem half will protect you from its effect."

Steven nodded.

Off in the woods Genma grinned.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

In the deep sea, a huge pillar erupted in shards and rubble. Peridot dove desperately for cover, trying to get out of the way of the shrapnel raining around her as Garnet and Amethyst burst through. She knew she could not match the two of them in a straight fight, and much of the transmitting structure here had been demolished already. Peridot had only barely managed to get the transmitter online again when the pair of clods had burst in and crushed it.

She could not transmit anymore, she could not fight them, and she could barely even mount a defense. All she could do now was run for her life, something that was a great deal more difficult without one foot thruster. She dearly needed to make that… "Steven" pay for that. If she could just get into the open water, she could use a smoke screen to cover her escape. Then maybe she could lay low long enough to…

Behind her, in the Com room, a Screen suddenly flickered to life. "This is Emerald, Captain of the Lattice Shine, responding to Distress Call." A voice said, "We are on our way to assist, High Scientist Peridot. Unfortunately, Rebel forces in your area have destroyed the Transwarp Gate on that end. At top speed, it will take us fifteen Cycles to reach your location. We hope you can hold out until then."

Peridot was ecstatic. She had been heard, and rescue would be coming to get her off this damned rock. All she had to do was-

A thorned whip wrapped around her arms. She turned, drawn back into the seriousness of the situation, only to see a huge metal fist coming at her at high speed. "Oh, frig." She said.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Retrieving the Amnesia Module had actually been a great deal easier than Pearl had expected. Normally, Gem Tech like this had a tendency to attract creatures, or generate some kind of defense meant to stop it from falling into the hands of the odd human that might wander in and find it, something the Gems could handle, but normal humans could not. The fact that she and Steven had been able to walk into the old abandoned shrine and pick it up without even the slightest bit of resistance was really very fortuitous.

She smiled as Steven held the device in his hand, grinning at having been able to accomplish the mission. "Be careful with that, Steven," She reminded him, "If you touch the crystal on the end, it could erase all your memories of the Gems, which in your case, could be all of your memories. You should probably bubble it before-"

Pearl cut off as an impact, slamming into her back with more force than she had ever thought possible, stole the words from her mouth. Her eyes glazed over, and she looked down at a human fist now protruding from her chest.

As her physical form began to dissolve, she heard a sinister whisper in her ear. "You took my boy from me. Now I will take yours."

"Pearl!" Steven's cry was the last thing Pearl heard before she had to retreat into her gem to recover.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Garnet and Amethyst Returned to the Temple, the Bubble containing Peridot's Gem safely sent ahead to the vault.

Amethyst grinned. "That was Awesome!" she said, "Too bad Pearl and Steven couldn't be there to see it. I can't wait to tell them. Where are they?"

Garnet was a little more reserved. The message from Emerald said that Peridot's reinforcements would be arriving in fifteen Galactic Cycles. That was about 10 Earth Years. It should be more than enough time to deal with Jasper. Still, this was enough of a win to justify a bit of celebration. She closed her eyes and used her Future Vision. A moment later all three of her eyes went wide behind her sunglasses. "Oh, no." she whispered. "Come on!"

They found Pearl's Gem at the bottom of the Bay.

"Oh, that can't be good." Amethyst said, "Where's Steven?"

Garnet looked around. "I don't know." she said, "I can't sense him anywhere, and something is interfering with my Future Vision. We'll have to wait on Pearl to recover and tell us what happened."

Garnet had a sneaking suspicion, and if she was right, they would need to find out what happened as soon as possible.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Ranma Saotome winced as he walked along behind the man who had told him he was his father, Genma Saotome. Ranma was not really sure what was going on. He could not remember anything before that day. His father had told him that it was a training accident. A blow to his head, and he could not remember anything that had happened before.

Apparently, he had been a martial arts prodigy, with his father training him in the Family style, but while his strength and agility seemed to bare it out, he did not feel like he had been training long. His father told him that he had only just begun a long training trip. They had only just set out from Japan a short time earlier. The Training, such as Genma had shown him so far, had been fast and brutal, with a great deal of aerial acrobatics and blows powerful enough to shatter trees and crack stone. Ranma was honestly surprised that his body was tough enough to handle it.

The gem protruding from his stomach was of particular interest and focus for Genma. He told Ranma that it was a gift from his mother, and that with the right training, he should eventually be able to summon a shield with it.

And so they traveled through the Countryside, seeking out training grounds and temples seeking to improve Ranma's ability and allow him to regain the skills they had lost.

In the night, though, in his dreams, Ranma saw many running silhouettes that seemed… Familiar somehow… calling a name he could not recall. And he would often see a wide sea of blue water with a beautiful azure woman standing at its center. When he tried to approach, though, she would be replaced by a monster with six arms.

And so, in time, Ranma followed the man he thought to be his father away from the family he had known, and Steven became a memory, lost to time.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

AN. Don't get your hopes up. I am hoping that I can keep this story up, but the truth is, I really don't know where this is going. Any suggestions welcome. As always, Constructive Criticism appreciated.


End file.
